


What John Would Have Wanted

by startrekto221B



Series: What John Would Have Wanted [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, John is in exile, M/M, Sherlock falls in love with Mary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:12:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekto221B/pseuds/startrekto221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series 3 AU where John shoots Magnussen instead of Sherlock. He avoids a public trial when Mycroft covers it up and sends him into exile. John kisses Sherlock before he gets on the plane. And both Sherlock and Mary have to cope with his perhaps indefinite absence. Finding comfort in the most unexpected way imaginable…</p>
            </blockquote>





	What John Would Have Wanted

Sherlock watched John say goodbye to Mary on the tarmac. He watched him touch her stomach, whisper something to the unborn child he’ll never see. He watched his face assume that resolute expression it does when he’s trying to suppress the pain. Then he sees him kiss her. With the knowledge that this kiss will have to last them both a lifetime. The knowledge that though it hasn’t really been that long since they swore that only death would part them, they are going their separate ways forever. Yet despite the fact that Sherlock knows this, knows just how much John loves this woman, in spite of everything, in spite of her lies and her betrayal, he feels that familiar pang in his chest when he watches them kiss. The same pang he felt at the wedding. That it was too late. John. His John. Had moved on. How he longs for that night now. At least then he had only lost the chance to be something more with John. Lost forever the chance to confess that he loved him. Had always, always loved him. Now he was losing all of John. And wasn’t quite sure he could take it.

Now after all this time, Sherlock thinks he understands the pain that John felt during the fall. And as Mary backs away, out of the corner of his eye Sherlock can see John beckon to him.

“This is it then, I suppose,” John looks at his shoes, then at Sherlock, then at his shoes.

“Yes, I-I can’t think of what to say,” Sherlock looks him right in the eyes. And for once. One time, John looks right back.

Then suddenly John is kissing him hard. Not particularly caring that both Mary and Mycroft are watching. Reaching up and pulling Sherlock closer by his shirt collar. Running a hand through his hair. In this kiss Sherlock feels the agony of the fall. He feels the tension between them from the beginning. The sparks flying from the first moment. All of it. Five years of wanting in one embrace. And if Sherlock thought it would be difficult to let go before, now it’s almost impossible.

“Promise me one thing,” John says when they break away, “You won’t turn to the drugs. After I’m gone. Could you do that? For me?”

Sherlock nods. Too stunned to say anything else as John walks toward the plane. He watches in silence as John boards. And in silence as the plane lifts off, getting smaller and smaller in the distance. Until John, his John, is nothing but a speck in the sky. Then not even that in the wide expanse of desolate blue.

***

He blames Mary. He really does. If she hadn’t lied to John. None of this would have happened. But this is flawed logic. If he hadn’t faked his own death. John never would have gotten involved with Mary. So it is his fault. But it isn’t. He wouldn’t have faked his death if Moriarty hadn’t threatened John. So it’s Moriarty’s fault. But how can it be? If Sherlock hadn’t gotten involved with Moriarty he wouldn’t be Sherlock. He would never have met John. No. There can be no blame.

It takes a week for her to get the courage to come over. At first she says it’s only to check that he hasn’t gone back on the drugs. Which he hasn’t.

He doesn’t go out much these days though. Just sits in the flat. He’s moved John’s chair back to its old place. Spends quite a bit of time staring at it. At the generally emptiness left by John. He imagines it was like this after the fall. With their roles reversed. And he hates himself for putting John through the pain he’s feeling now. The John shaped cavity in his chest slowly expands. He’s tempted to go back to the drugs to numb the feeling. But he can’t. He promised. He can’t do it.

He can’t have tea or coffee either without thinking of John. So he drinks water. All the time. Water and bread. While he pointlessly surfs the internet. Memorizing facts about random scientific topics. He becomes an expert on astronomy. Only to mass delete it because that too reminds him of John.

Taking cases is simply not an option. The cases involved John. Maybe one day. But not now. Now he can compose depressing music on the violin. Though he never plans on it being depressing. It sometimes even starts out cheerful. But it always ends up that way. He’s just finished playing one when she comes I the first time. Seven days after the tarmac. He barely acknowledges her when she enters. Mrs. Hudson probably let her in. 

“You’re not using?” she asks quietly.

“No,” he says shortly.

She sees the dishes he’s neglected to do in the sink. And she does them. Then she picks up her coat and leaves.

***

The next time she comes she’s brought over a box of John’s stuff.

“Thought you might like this,” she puts it by him.

He says nothing.

“It’s hard for me too, Sherlock, I’m carrying his baby for god’s sake,” she exclaims.

“I read the flashdrive,” Sherlock remarks.

“What?”

“I did, fascinating,”

“Are you serious?”

Sherlock gets up, pacing about the room, “You are singularly gifted, I honestly don’t understand why you would settle for being a nurse. Didn’t it bore you?”

Mary smiles, it’s been a long time since Sherlock’s seen one of her genuine smiles, “You’re right there with me then. I know what you’re trying to ask me. Didn’t John bore me? Well did he bore you?”

Sherlock is startled by this, as he often is, by how quickly she sees through him, “No,”

“We’re still obviously not talking about that kiss,”

“It would be awkward to talk about it,” Sherlock shrugs, “You’re carrying his baby, as you mentioned,”

“I knew, I always knew,” she confesses, “He loved you,”

“It doesn’t bother you at all, that’s highly improbable,”

“Oh Sherlock, he knew he was never going to see you again, if he loved you and he didn’t kiss you then I would have come over there and made him,” Mary said, “I mean am I bothered by the fact that my husband was in love with his best friend? I should be. But I was aware of it for so long that I’ve had my time to be over it.”

“You did shoot me,” Sherlock reasons, “We could call it even.”

“How is that even? I shoot you. You kiss my husband.” Mary laughs.

Sherlock laughs too, and Mary is happy to see him laugh, though she can’t quite say why. Perhaps it is the knowledge that they both loved John so much. And Sherlock is the only other person who knows how much it hurts to lose him. The only person who shares the emptiness with her.

“I’ll come by tomorrow,” Mary says, touching him on the shoulder, “Will you be in?”

“I always am,” he confesses.

“I can still feel him here,” she says as she looks around.

“I know,” Sherlock replies, “It’s driving me mad.”

***

Sherlock begins to see why John relied on Mary so much after the fall. She has a way of making the room lighter. But behind those animated eyes, the pretty, fair-haired exterior, he too can sense the brilliance that drew John to her.

She comes over almost every day. In the beginning they talk about John. Sort through his things. But he’s always had questions about the things in the flashdrive. So he gets a chance to ask them too. It’s exciting to hear what she has to say. The things she’s done abroad. Sherlock can relate, tell her about the things he had to do when he was dismantling Moriarty’s network. He begins to like showing off for her. Making deductions aloud for the first time since John’s departure. She seems to like showing off for him. Each feat of marksmanship more difficult than the last. She’s incredible, Sherlock thinks to himself. John’s wife is incredible.

Yet despite Mary’s presence in his life Sherlock can’t shake the emptiness left by John. The unchangeable fact that John is never, ever coming back. That he’ll never see him again. The memories of the kiss torment him in his dreams. He can’t concentrate on things. Still spends the days memorizing fact after fact. Storing and deleting different volumes of Encyclopedias just to occupy his racing mind.

“It’s so empty here,” he tells her one day.

It’s been two months since John’s been gone. But it feels like years. Decades have past.

“I hate it at home to,” she sighs, and shifts uncomfortably on the couch, she’s showing a lot more now.

“You’ll have the baby soon,” Sherlock observes coldly.

“I know, Sherlock,” Mary says, and she’s on the verge of crying, “I’ll have the baby but I’ll still be alone,”

“Stay here,” Sherlock finds himself saying, “I have the extra space,”

“That’s sweet of you Sherlock but I couldn’t—“

“Please,” Sherlock says, “This child is the last thing we have of John’s,”

She nods, “It is isn’t it. It’s a part of him.”

***

Mary sleeps in Sherlock’s room since it’s on the lower floor. Sherlock moves up to John’s. It feels odd. This arrangement. But a strange sort of domesticity arises that Sherlock can’t bring himself to dislike.

He busies himself with the housework. John wouldn’t want his pregnant wife walking around amidst fire hazards and general germ infested things. He plays violin for Mary when she has trouble falling asleep. At night when she has the oddest of cravings he goes out to see which of the shops are open to find what she needs. When she feels sick he brings food to her room. For the first time in years there is only good healthy food in fridge. Exactly what a pregnant woman needs. The experiments, when Sherlock begins those again, are confined to John’s old room.

In the afternoons they sit in companionable silence in the living room. In the mornings they converse over breakfast much in the way that John and Sherlock, and Mary and John once did. Mary has work, but when she comes back she tries to talk him into taking a new case. He always says no. But they always devolve into other conversations. Sometimes about John. Sometimes about the baby. What they might name it. Sometimes about John and Sherlock. Sometimes about Mary and Sherlock. Sometimes they just sit on the sofa and watch crap telly.

“You’re really doing all of this because I’m John’s wife aren’t you? You really loved him,” Mary says one day, squeezing his hand.

“In the beginning yes, I did it because it was what John would have wanted, but you, you fill the void,” Sherlock says matter-of-factly.

“You fill the void too,” she says.

There’s a silence for a bit, then Sherlock looks at her stomach, “What about Emily?”

“Emily Watson? I quite like it,”

***

When the baby is born Sherlock is playing the part of the father in the delivery room. Every second he feels that it should be John here. John holding Mary’s hand. John standing here being comforting instead of Sherlock calling the doctor’s stupid and telling Mary all the facts about the progress, the biology behind the baby’s birth. He has of course prepared most fully for this task. In fact, he is reasonably sure he has the anatomical knowledge to deliver the baby himself.

It is the emotional part of this he isn’t quite ready for.

Seeing the baby in Mary’s arms, it’s soft golden hair. And the doctor who says innocently, “She’s beautiful isn’t she? Just the image of her mother, eh?”

“Oh I’m not, not the father,” Sherlock says quickly, but he’s not quite sure the doctor hears him, because suddenly Emily’s being passed to him, and something about the way he holds her tells this annoying doctor that he will be an excellent father as she says, “Look at that. Dad’s a natural,”

When they bring the forms for the birth certificate he’s holding Emily as Mary’s writing.

“John would be so proud,” Sherlock says as he rocks her.

“Sherlock would you like to be in Emily’s life? As her father?” Mary asks, “I realize I should have talked to you about this before, but I couldn’t bring it up and just seeing you with her now, I know it’s crazy but would just consider—“

“Yes,”

“Yes, just like that? You don’t want to think or…”

“Yes,” he repeats.

The birth certificate reads _Emily Watson-Holmes_. And for the first time since John’s departure. Sherlock feels truly happy.


End file.
